ABSTRACT
In biomedical ethic, the discussion begins with a case problem. Someone faces a concrete moral dilemma or two people disagree about what in a specific situation is the morally appropriate behavior. One will move up and down the ladder of the levels of moral discourse. In order to sort out the disparate and complex ethical issues people need a map of ethical terrain: an overview of the kinds of ethical issues at stake and the terminology for labeling the disputes. This chapter provides a basic map of that terrain. Sometimes the parties to an ethical dispute may cite a rule-like maxim. Medical professional, religious, cultural, and political organizations sometimes gather together collections of rules or rights claims. Metaethics deals with most basic questions of ethics. If a bio-ethic includes more than one ethical principle, the action theory portion of normative ethics will have to address the question of how to resolve the conflicts that arise among them.
